“What?” Grace said.

“Stop the car.”

Grace did as she was told. Her headlights shone down the length of the narrow lane. Nobody was around. Benton got out of the car.

“Where are you going?” Grace asked.

“Come with me, please. Shut off the headlights.”

“I can’t just block the road,” Grace said.

“Nobody uses this road,” Benton said.

Grace switched off the lights and got out of the car. It was dark now, and Lucretia Mott Lane was lined with ancient, leafy trees, trees that had known the Wampanoag Indians, and the Quakers, and the whaling widows.

Benton gathered Grace up in his arms and kissed her right in the middle of the street. It was thrilling but terrifying.

She said, “Someone is going to see us.”

He said, “I don’t care. I don’t care who sees us. I love you, Grace. I love you.”

She stared at him; tears stood in her eyes, making everything sharp and clear. “Yes,” she said. “I love you, too. I have never loved anyone the way that I love you.”

Grace drove Benton home, and when he told her that Donovan and Leslie were off island, seeing Lyle Lovett at the Cape Cod Melody Tent, Grace followed him upstairs to his apartment.

How do you see this ending?

She didn’t.

Love the way she experienced it with Benton Coe was dramatic and urgent and all consuming. It was LOVE in capital letters, boldfaced, underlined. It made what she felt for Eddie seem like some other emotion entirely. She liked Eddie and had been charmed by him. He made her laugh and offered her what she so desperately needed: a way out of her house with her stifling parents and overbearing brothers. Eddie had presented her with an opportunity to create a home and raise children the way she wanted. He had let her be the boss and run the show. He had provided her with every material thing she could ask for. She was grateful to Eddie for that, but she did not love him the way that she loved Benton.

When Grace got home, the house was dark and quiet—everyone was either out or asleep—and she was grateful.

She ran right up to her study, to call Madeline.

EDDIE

Grace went to her little garden-club party, and Allegra was out as always, leaving just Eddie and Hope at home. Grace hadn’t made any dinner, which was unusual; she was too consumed with her dress and hair and makeup, Eddie supposed. She looked so beautiful that Eddie almost wished he were going with her. But the garden club… no. He’d rather stick his hand in a nest of killer bees.

What was he supposed to eat? He could scramble some eggs, he supposed. There were five fresh cartons on the counter.

But he could do better than eggs, he thought as Grace drove off in the Range Rover. He knocked on the closed door of Hope’s room.

She swung the door open. “What?”

“Are you hungry?” Eddie asked.

She shrugged. She and Allegra shrugged in exactly the same way; it irritated him.

“Get dressed up,” he said. “I’m taking you out for dinner.”

Thirty minutes later found Eddie and Hope walking up a cobblestone path between two garden cottages, toward the grand front porch of the Summer House. Wafts of good smells came from inside, as well as the sound of the piano, and glasses clinking, conversation and laughter. Eddie’s spirits lifted. He took Hope’s arm. She looked lovely in a white sundress, with her hair in a French braid. She looked like a girl, whereas Allegra always looked scarily like a woman.

Eddie and Hope were seated at a table by one of the front windows. The Summer House had uneven wooden floors and the rustic, genteel feel of a summer house from the 1940s. The piano player favored Cole Porter. Eddie ordered a martini with a twist, and Hope got a Coke.

When the drinks came, Eddie raised his glass and said, “Cheers, Big Ears.”

Hope said, “This is nice. Thanks, Dad.”

Eddie nearly teared up. He worked his ass off, he hustled like no one else, and yet the three women in his life remained unimpressed. Eddie didn’t need a parade, but it was nice to hear a thank-you every once in a while, an acknowledgment that he was more than just an ATM.

“You’re very welcome.”

Hope ordered the clam chowder and the Caesar salad, and Eddie splurged on the foie gras and the lamb chops. He ordered a good bottle of pinot noir from the Willamette Valley, and then he leaned back in his chair and he said, “So, what’s going on with your sister?”

“I have no idea,” Hope said.

“Really?” Eddie said.

Hope said, “Please tell me you didn’t invite me out to dinner on a recon mission about Allegra. If you want to know about Allegra, Daddy, ask Allegra.”

“I’m sorry, you’re right,” Eddie said. “I have you here, and I care about you. What’s going on with you?”

Hope shrugged.

“Do you like your job at the rectory?”

“It’s fine.”

“Father Declan isn’t inappropriate with you, is he?” ’

“Dad!” Hope said. “No! Please shut up.”

“A father has to ask,” Eddie said.

“I like Father Declan,” Hope said. “He’s smart. I’m reading John O’Hara’s novel An Appointment in Samarra, and Father Declan said it was one of his favorite books in college.”

The conversation had just gone over Eddie’s head. He liked to tell people he hadn’t read a book since Dune in the tenth grade, but he hadn’t even read Dune all the way through. The last book Eddie had finished was Stuart Little.